In an article about France urging Syrian rebels to form a provisional government, the New York Times scrubbed a passage which revealed that the CIA was helping funnel arms to rebel groups that have aligned themselves with Al-Qaeda terrorists.

Version three of the story, posted at 19:45:05 UTC yesterday and entitled France Says It Would Recognize Provisional Syrian Government, included the line, ” American intelligence agents have helped funnel arms to rebel groups.”

However, fifteen minutes later the revelation that the CIA was arming the rebels was removed and replaced with the words, “American intelligence agents have helped to identify the rebel groups that receive arms.”

Copies of the two different versions of the article can be viewed here.

This change of wording, albeit subtle, serves to absolve the CIA of directly arming rebels, who are admittedly being led by Al-Qaeda terrorists as the London Guardian reported last month.

Earlier this month, President Barack Obama signed a secret order authorizing the CIA to aid Syrian rebels in attempting to overthrow Bashar Al-Assad. However, the order stopped short of allowing the CIA to provide lethal weapons.

A d v e r t i s e m e n t

Despite public claims on behalf of the White House that no weapons are being sent to the rebels, reports that the CIA has been doing precisely that have been circulating for months, including a recent story about CIA spies smuggling 14 stinger missiles into Syria so rebels could defend themselves with ground to air technology.

The New York Times’ decision to alter the wording of the article is another example of how NATO-aligned media outlets are concerned about overemphasizing western support for the rebels given their involvement in terrorist attacks and other acts of brutality.

Last week, the BBC removed a video clip which documented how FSA rebels were committing war crimes by using prisoners as unwitting suicide bombers.

In a related development, hackers infiltrated Amnesty International’s website last night and used the NGO’s blog platform to post stories about the plight of protesters in Bahrain, Kurds in Turkey, as well as an article entitled Amnesty Calls on UN to stop the US, Qatar and Turkey funding and arming Syria Rebels.

The Associated Press dismissed the article as a “fake blog post” and refused to divulge its content. Yet the story, a cached copy of which can be read here, cited confirmed reports that Syrian rebels are engaging in war crimes, as well as FSA fighters being responsible for the Houla massacre, which was initially blamed on Assad’s forces.

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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show and Infowars Nightly News.